Thursday, November 15, 2007

Flagger

Okay, I've just thought of the next great social networking website.

Working name for it is Flagger.

The basic premise came to me last night when I was trying to figure out the availabilities of people for just hanging out. Back when I was living in a dormitory at Miami, this was pretty easy to do; just look out the door, see which other ones are open and what people's body language is.

Now, inside an apartment, let alone an apartment where I can't even leave my door open for people to stop on by because it opens to the outside directly, that's not possible. My friends and I are strewn across miles of area, which makes it hard to just drop by, something that works a lot better for my personality than calling people up and seeing if they want to do something, and only get shot down.

Enter Flagger.

Flagger is a "contact manager" website, where you and your friends sign up, and have three basic settings (with corresponding color flags of green, yellow, and red): available, interruptible, and busy.

At a glance, you can see who's up for doing something right now, shoot them a line, and instantly have someone to hang out with, all without having to look up your phone directory and call down the list.

Flagger could then be customized further with renaming the flags (similar to Google Chat's status settings) contact information listed such as AIM, phone number, email address, and street address, and whatever else was desired, so that after you found someone to hang out with, you could click on the corresponding messaging service, it would launch the program needed, and bam, hangout time.

The beauty of all this (messaging service aside) is that it would require nothing more than an Internet connection, allowing someone to access this wherever they had access, such as the public library, their iPhone on lunch break, or at work. Easily accessible with no necessarily installed software, allowing everyone to use it equally.

In addition, that lack of software would mean that unlike an AIM away message, that if someone kept their computer shut off to save energy (money and environment there), or if they used a laptop in a location without an Internet connection, they could still have their status listed. This would allow people to be environmentally and economically conscious without sacrificing their ability to get in contact with people.

Flagger would probably be paid for through discrete mini-advertising, similar to Facebook, Google, Freerice.com, and so on, although that would be determined later.

What do you all think of this Web 2.0 venture?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

... Not to be a jerk, but... that's what Trillian is for. In my day at Miami no one left their door open, they left messenger on with either no away message or a message that detailed their schedule for the day and encouraged people to meet them for lunch or come to their room and bother them. You can come hang out with me. It's only a 5 hour drive. :-D